BAGHDAD — In the early morning sun, 12-year-old Walid Salim strides to the yard of his school, kisses Iraq's flag and hoists it high. At a lunchtime cafe, three 18-year-old friends gather to eye girls and talk cars.
Free to surf the Web, a university professor gleefully searches for news from afar. In a small house, a mother worries for her sons as news of a suicide bomb flashes across town.
On this typical day in the life of Iraq, shaken as it often is by violence, a whole nation of people get up each morning and try to live normally — going to school, earning a living, getting married, having fun.
Men, women, children and teenagers, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, this is the story of one day of their lives.
The sky is still dark when Mohammed Khallaf, his wife Fadhila, and their 12 children begin to stir Thursday in their small house in the Shiite slum of Sadr City. First come the morning prayers, then the dash to school and work.
In the chaos of a big family, the shoes of the youngest boy, 9-year-old Yahya, cannot be found, bringing shouts and suspicions from the father.
Eventually, the boy admits he threw the shoes on the roof. No shoes, no school, he figured. On Thursday, he has science and he does not like his teacher.
With the shoes down, the children finally go off to school and the oldest sons — ages 28 and 23 — off to jobs, Fadhila and her older daughters settle into their morning chores: washing dishes, washing clothes, cleaning the house.
At al-Diraya elementary school in Baghdad's Harithya neighborhood, the sun is well up and the air warm by 8 a.m., when 12-year-old Walid raises the Iraqi flag with its red, white and black strips and its words: "Allahu Akbar," "God is Great."
In a small dusty classroom, dirty with mold but brightened by a red plastic flower in a vase, English teacher Azhar Hashim tells a student practicing the words "I'm from Iraq," to raise his voice when he says that.
"We all have to be proud of our country," she says, her black dress stained white with chalk.
In the next room, Thanaa Mohamed asks her students to describe the rights of Iraqi citizens. "Equality and freedom," answers 12-year-old Jiwan Arasin.
"Who can define equality?" Mohamed asks. "All people were born free," answers Esraa Jabbar.
And freedom? "To express your opinion freely," answers Walid Khalid.
The school's biggest problem is parents' fear of attack, which often keeps children home. There also is the disturbing trend of students asking each other if they are Sunni or Shiite, says principal Yasamin Subhi Amin.
The teacher of Islamic education is under orders to tell children they are all Muslim.
Far to the south, it is the freedom to make money that preoccupies Sami Dawoud Ali, a Basra businessman who owns a dock and a warehouse on the Shatt al-Arab river that flows between Iraq and Iran.
Ali owns 12 boats himself, and dreams of turning them into a bigger fleet someday. For now, his port takes in large boats loaded with food, used cars and household electronics.
As he chats, Ali must duck away often to check on the 50 workers unloading cargo, or talk by cell phone with shipping agents in bustling Dubai, down the Persian Gulf.
Government has hindered his business, he says: Officials and political parties demand bribes and push him to hire certain people.
But his friends in the government also help cut red tape.
"I am a close friend of the Transportation Minister and this makes my work easier," Ali says, leaning back in his chair, surrounded by faxes and phones. "Otherwise my business would have been much slower."
At an Internet cafe on Baghdad's busy Palestine street, Dr. Sahar Nafi Shakir is checking her e-mail as usual, and surfing the Web for news on international geology conferences.
Shakir, an assistant professor at nearby Mustansiriyah University, first used the Internet in mid-2002. At the time, with Saddam Hussein still in power, she needed special permission from the campus security chief and the approval of her boss.
"You cannot compare these days to those of Saddam, when it comes to the Internet," she said, smiling widely.
Packing up her bag, she rushes off to a class.
"In the past, Iraq was a big prison," she says. "Today it is a jungle, and I love living in a jungle."
Across town, the roar of explosives rings out. In a flash, there is broken glass, shreds of furniture, pools of blood.
A suicide bomber has mingled among the policemen who drop by every day for an early lunch at the Qadouri Restaurant, one of the few remaining restaurants on what used to be a streetful.
American soldiers armed with M-16 rifles, in full battle dress, rush to stand guard. The toll: more than 40 dead and 2 dozen wounded.
Back at her house in Sadr City, Fadhila hears the news and frets: Her sons are out working somewhere in Baghdad.
"Don't worry. Every person will die on the day when God wants him to die," her husband says.
"I will not let them go to work from now on," she answers.
"How are we going to make a living?" her husband asks.
In midafternoon, the sons return home, unharmed.
The children of Ibrahim Ali and his wife Fatima Mohammed also come home — to a lunch of soup, rice and bread warmed by their father, and an afternoon of staying indoors.
Ali has converted a small part of his family's house in the market city of Baqouba to a shop selling cigarettes and sweets. His wife works as a clerk in the governor's office.
The oldest, Salam, 12, wants to play soccer with his friends after school. "But my mother won't let me go outside after school," he said, because of fears of attacks.
Instead, in the small house with two rooms, the children do their homework or watch TV.
As the afternoon wears on, three friends watch the crowd filling the rooftop Dream Land Cafe in the upscale Zayouna neighborhood of Baghdad. Sultan Amjad, Harith Muthana and Marwan Walid, all 18, have known each other since grade school.
They spent the early afternoon eyeing girls outside a junior high, trying to attract attention with little luck.
"We will come next Thursday and do it again. We will never give up until we get girlfriends," Walid said.
Cars are their other passion: Amjad's father owns a car shop, and he often regales his friends with photos, snapped on his mobile phone, of fancy cars for sale.
By 4 p.m., the friends are on the street, dickering with a merchant over a pair of flip-flops, then heading for an Internet cafe.
"We'll go online and find some girls to chat with," Walid says.
But the Internet place is packed. Still boasting of their plans, the three head home.
Dusk is falling in Sulaimaniyah as Maliha Mahmoud begins to clean and prepare her family's oil lantern.
Each night, the electricity is cut off, even here in the Kurdish north where violence is lower and the economy better.
She and her husband, Khalid Majid, a teacher, have 10 children. Even with better times, they barely scrape by.
As everywhere across Iraq, the daily electricity blackouts seem to rankle.
"We have some daily hardships," Majid said. Yet despite that, "our life is much better than compared to Saddam time."
Contributing: Omar Sinan, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Sinan Salaheddin, Bassem Mroue, Abbas Fayadh, Hanaa Abdullah, Yahya Barzanji and Abdel-Hussein al-Obeidi